A feminist academic who was subjected to “bullying and harassment” by students because of her views on transgender rights has resigned.

Professor Kathleen Stock, a philosopher at the University of Sussex, stepped down after protests in Brighton over accusations of “transphobia”.

Stock has argued against reform of the Gender Recognition Act to allow self-identification and believes biological women should be treated different compared with biological males who identify as women.

Announcing her resignation last week, she hit out at the protesters, saying that she and her family had been put through “an absolutely horrible time”. In recent weeks students in balaclavas have paraded banners through the city calling for her dismissal.

A government source said that Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and equalities minister, was “appalled” that Stock had “effectively been hounded and bullied out of a job for expressing an opinion. She thinks this sort of cancel culture is bad for our democracy and society.”

Students in Brighton welcomed Stock’s resignation but said they were disappointed that the University of Sussex had not responded to their petition to remove the academic earlier.

After protests began, the Sussex branch of the University and College Union called for an investigation into ‘transphobia’ at the university.

Stock said in a statement that she posted on Twitter yesterday that the union “seems to think it is OK” for gender-critical women to be bullied at work.

Married couples who meet online are six times more likely to divorce within the first three years than those who meet their partners through more traditional routes.

Research has found that 12 per cent of couples who met over the internet did not make their third anniversary, compared to just two per cent who found love via family or friends.

The report, by the Marriage Foundation, suggests that those who meet online are at higher risk of divorce because they could be ‘relative strangers’ when they tie the knot.

“Gathering reliable information about the long-term character of the person you are dating or marrying is quite obviously more difficult for couples who meet online without input from mutual friends or family or other community,” said Harry Benson, the foundation’s research director.

“For online couples, wider social bonds between families and friends have to form from scratch rather than being well-established over years or even decades. It is therefore not entirely unsurprising that the input of family, friends or co-workers reduces the risk of making a hasty mistake.”

A bill to introduce “anti-homophobia” legislation in Italy, harshly criticised by pro-family groups and Catholic leaders as an attack on free speech, failed in the Italian Senate on Wednesday.

The proposed law, known as “Ddl Zan,” was voted down 154 to 131, with two abstentions.

Italy’s Catholic bishops had spoken out against the bill, which they said had the potential to infringe on the civil liberties of those opposed to same-sex unions.

Earlier this month, the Vatican’s doctrinal office responded to a query regarding bills like “Ddl Zan” and listed the many times that Pope Francis has condemned gender ideology and said Catholic legislators must oppose laws inconsistent with Catholic teaching.

Toni Brandi, the president of Pro Vita & Famiglia, praised the Senate’s decision to drop the bill, saying that “the rejection of Ddl Zan is a victory for democracy, freedom of opinion and conscience, and the educational freedom of Italian families.”

In the US, former police cadets have alleged sexual harassment and mistreatment that included being forced to have abortions.

The women have taken a lawsuit against the Washington DC Police Department.

One of those is currently a high-ranking officer in the Department, Assistant Police Chief, Chanel Dickerson.

She told her story of harassment at a community meeting last week, but then she added something not included in her lawsuit: an ultimatum she was given as an 18 year old trainee to get an abortion or risk being fired from the police academy.

“Wow. My choice to have a baby was personal and it should’ve been mine alone and not for an employer ultimatum,” Dickerson said.

News of her admission prompted another officer to come forward with the same allegation.

Karen Arikpo has been with the DC police for 24 years.

She said her sergeant, a woman, told her class of recruits that if any one of them were pregnant they would need to get an abortion or be fired.

“So later that day, I went and told my class sergeant that I was pregnant. And she said I needed to have an abortion and she referred me to a doctor in D.C. to get it done,” Arikpo said.

She later bitterly regretted her decision as she became unable to have children.

Disability rights’ activists have welcomed the progress of a bill in NI to remove ‘severe impairment’ as a ground for surgically terminating a pregnancy and therefore stop eugenic abortion.

The bill has passed Committee Stage at the Northern Ireland Assembly, after 99% of the 9,125 submissions to a Northern Ireland Committee for Health consultation on the Bill supported the proposed law change.

Heidi Crowter, a campaigner who has Down Syndrome, welcomed the news, saying the current law “is downright discrimination” because it allows late-term abortion for babies with disabilities, but not healthy babies.

Lisa Allen from Belfast, whose son Aaron has Down Syndrome, also welcomed that the bill is one step closer to becoming law. “When Aaron was 4 weeks old we were told he would need surgery on his heart at 6 months old. He has 3 holes in his heart, a VSD, ASD and PDA. Aaron was sent home with a feeding tube and meds and we were told to prepare for his surgery at 6 months old. Nearly 6 years later and he is amazing his consultants and has still avoided surgery. Aaron is a loveable, strong and determined little boy. To think that now a baby like Aaron could have his life ended because of Down Syndrome breaks my heart. He has shown that he is strong, able and determined from day one”.

The uncritical use of puberty blockers in the US in the treatment of gender dysphoria may be changing.

While concerns have been mounting in much of the developed world, with some countries having scaled back their use, in America doctors who work in transgender clinics routinely claim that prescribing such drugs is both “conservative”, as they claim their effects are largely reversible, and “compassionate”, because they are meant to save children with gender dysphoria (the feeling of being in the wrong body) from enormous distress.

But last week Abigail Shrier, a writer, published interviews in “Common Sense With Bari Weiss”, a newsletter, with two transgender health-care professionals who suggested that some doctors were irresponsible in the way they treated children. The women, both trans, are on the board of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (wpath), which endorses the use of blockers early in puberty in some cases. Though blockers are often described as operating like a pause button, most children prescribed them go on to cross-sex hormones. This combination can have irreversible consequences, including sterility and the inability to orgasm.

A bill to protect unborn children with significant disabilities from abortion has advanced through committee stage at Stormont.

The bill seeks to remove “severe impairment”, which could include Down Syndrome, as a ground for abortion up to birth, which includes a wide-range of conditions.

The DUP, alongside the UUP, voted for First Minister Paul Givan’s legislation in the Assembly’s Health Committee.

People Before Profit and the Alliance party opposed the bill whilst members of Sinn Féin and SDLP abstained from the vote.

If assisted suicide is legalised in the UK, people may be coerced into signing away their lives, according to doctors who treat terminally ill patients.

In a letter to The Times, experts from hospitals and universities highlighted problems in jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal.

They write: “Evidence from Oregon shows how assessment of capacity for assisted suicide is influenced by the individual values of assessing clinicians, something that is almost impossible to mitigate against.

“Patients seeking assisted suicide often have significant psychosocial distress, making them at increased risk of coercion and abuse; Oregon’s most recent official report shows that 53 per cent of patients who died under the state’s Death with Dignity Act reported feeling a burden on their families, friends or caregivers. Pain and fear of pain were less frequently cited.”

The letter continues: “In Canada emerging evidence shows that the medical assistance in dying law can worsen the quality of death, creating strain between patients and their families and impairing effective symptom control, leading to patient and provider distress.”

It concludes: “Legalising assisted suicide, without strong evidence of the effectiveness of proposed safeguards, is unwise and unsafe.”

Concern has been expressed about the Christian exodus from Lebanon and the lack of a response from Western Governments.

Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), he fears that, if this crisis continues, “it will be the end of Christians in Lebanon and the whole of the near East in a few years”.

“Normally when Christians leave, as happened in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey, they don’t return. They ask, ‘Why should we return when we can’t guarantee our children a decent life nor religious freedom?’”

He also explained that the number of Christians leaving Lebanon is very alarming:

“One of our clergy went to get a residency permit and an official told him that they issue 5,000 passports a day, and that they estimate that at least 3,000 of these are for Christians who then leave. We can’t convince them to stay because they say, ‘How can we endure this situation? There is no hope for our future.’ You have to look at the problems in Lebanon and tell the politicians that enough is enough. Perhaps it’s no more in the interest of the Western politicians. They have other issues to deal with.”

The Patriarch is unhappy with the efforts made by western governments to help Christians in the Middle East. He felt that European governments were more concerned with animal rights and pandering to secular groups than helping to uphold Christian’s rights in the Middle East.

A vote to ban pro-life work outside abortion centres in Northern Ireland has been described as “diabolical” by Tracey Harkin of the Iona Institute Northern Ireland. She said there is “no justification for it”.

Two thirds of MLAs in the Northern Assembly voted in favour of the ‘Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Bill’ including the SDLP and Sinn Féin representatives.

The bill would establish areas outside clinics that would criminalise activities that seek to influence or impede people attending.

Tracey Harkin said that while everyone condemns harassment, this bill is “trying to prevent any sort of help or support or outreach.”

“For those generous souls who show up outside abortion centres and offer vulnerable women advice and support, especially financial help and just friendship – we know that we’re saving lives and that’s just Christianity in action, it’s love in action,” Ms Harkin said.